After five days feeding myself on £1 a day, I had about 70p of food left from the original £5 shopping.
Here’s the food I started with (listed in a previous blog here):
 |
| £5 of food to last 5 days. Well, £4.97, with 3p for salt, pepper, chilli powder, cumin & a tiny bit of oil. |
And here’s what was left at the end of Live Below the Line:
 |
| A sea of beige |
You may be able to distinguish within the sea of beige most of a jar of marmalade, shedloads of rice (aka 630g), about 120 ml of milk, a small pot of porridge oats, a couple of value chicken stock cubes, three oat balls poised to become flatbreads and my first rejected attempt at a flatbread.
(For further details about my oat based incompetence, see here).
Doing Live Below the Line has made me much more aware of avoiding food waste.
Even so, I couldn’t quite face the oat flatbreads after 4 days sitting in the fridge, but all the rest of the leftovers will be put to good use.
The stock cubes and rice have been added to my storecupboard for future meals.
The oats were immediately pressed into action to make celebratory flapjack, with the addition of hefty doses of sugar, syrup and Stork:
 |
| Home-made flapjack for 6p a piece |
The milk topped up my long-awaited cups of tea and the marmalade tasted even better with butter on my toast.
With hordes of friends due for lunch, I also had a go at making marmalade glazed ham.
Boiling up a gammon joint to slice tends to be cheaper than buying multiple packs of ham.
I’ve used a Mary Berry recipe for mango glazed ham before, involving a carton of mango juice and mango chutney. Lacking either, I used a carton of value orange juice and some of the remaining marmalade.
The cooking time depends on the weight of the gammon, so make sure you check the packaging or weigh the joint first.
I put the gammon joint in a big saucepan, added a carton of orange juice and topped it up with water until the joint was covered.
Bring the liquid up the boil, turn the heat down and then simmer for 20 minutes per 450g plus an extra 20 minutes. Then wrestle the big hot lump of ham out of the saucepan, smear marmalade generously over the outside, use a knife to score lines in the surface and stud it randomly with a few cloves. I think if your joint is a fancy version with thick skin and a layer of fat underneath, you’re meant to peel the skin off before adding marmalade, cloves and scoring the surface, but I didn’t bother.
I put it on a baking tray with foil underneath to cut down on washing up, and a circle of foil on the top to protect the lean bit without skin, then bunged it into a hot oven (or under a grill) until it went golden brown, which was about 20 minutes for me.
Here’s the end result:
 |
| Marmalade glazed ham, just out of the oven |
And here’s an example of some of the slices:
 |
| Marmalade glazed ham once sliced. |
A 1.35kg joint that cost £7 from Morrisons served 8 adults and 9 children with a bit left over, when accompanied with bread and salads, and tasted great. The ham, including the orange juice, a few cloves and some marmalade, cost about 45p a head.
That’s the thing with Live Below the Line – the challenge may only last for 5 days, but the impact on your own life lasts for much, much longer.
Many thanks to everyone who has sponsored my efforts to feed myself on £1 a day for 5 days on Live Below the Line. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who’s contributed to UNICEF’s vital work keeping children safe, fed and healthy, especially in the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal.
The campaign remains open right through until the end of June, so there’s still time to donate!
Here’s the link to my fundraising page:
https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/muchmorewithless
Well done on completing the five days. I found it really tough this year, tougher than all the other years in fact. Love the idea of celebratory flapjacks.
I cooked up what was left of my rice and threw it to the chickens …. they enjoyed it far more than I did.
Glad the chickens enjoyed the rice. I've been worrying my husband by checking out chicken coops on Gumtree. No space on the paving while we were in London, but there's a great spot at the end of the garden now…
Highly Recommended!
Very insightful, i will also say this here. Investment is one of the best ways to achieve financial freedom. For a beginner there are so many challenges you face. It’s hard to know how to get started. Trading on the Cryptocurrency market has really been a life changer for me. I almost gave up on crypto at some point not until saw a recommendation on Elon musk successfully success story and I got a proficient trader/broker Mr Bernie Doran , he gave me all the information required to succeed in trading. I made more profit than I could ever imagine. I’m not here to converse much but to share my testimony; I have made total returns of 3.6BTC from an investment of just 0.6BTC. Thanks to Mr Bernie I’m really grateful,I have been able to make a great returns trading with his signals and strategies .I urge anyone interested in INVESTMENT to take bold step in investing in the Cryptocurrency Market, you can reach him on WhatsApp : +1(424) 285-0682 or his Gmail : BERNIEDORANSIGNALS(@)GMAIL(.)COM, bitcoin is taking over the world, tell him I referred you
Read carefully,
a message for victims of scam/fraud.
It’s becoming a problem how people are being victimized by scam, sadly enough. But you now have the right to make enquiries, seek proof of any recovery hacker you come across to avoid getting scammed again in the process. When I was defrauded 153k worth of USDT I had, I hired few of the recovery experts I could find, also reported my case, but still there was no positive feedback. Two weeks later I read about BLISS PARADOX RECOVERY in a magazine, doubtfully, I decided to give a trial. I emailed them concerning my issues, submitted the necessary things thy asked me to submit and luckily, stolen money was recovered. But honestly speaking, I never thought of the outcome to be that quick and positive. They actually made it look so easy, they recovered almost 80% of what was stolen. Thanks to them, something too good to be true. I was left no choice but to admit that funds recovery is real. In case you needed any assistance like this, they asked me to share the contact details you can reach out to. Mail: Blissparadoxrecovery @ aol. com, Whatsapp +1 3 8 0 2 0 6 9 7 1 2, Signal No. + 1 7 2 7 6 1 5 9 0 3 0, Telegram: Blissparadoxrecovery
WEBSITE: https://dev-blissparadoxrecovery.pantheonsite.io/
Regards,
Jennifer
Good info Lucky me I reach on your website by accident, I bookmarked it
Thank you EXNER HACKER for the kindness you showed me and for being so loyal in my lost funds recovery process. You just saved my life big time. I am glad that you were also able to hand me over the scammers and now they are being dealt with by the law. Well, this all was a dream as I clearly informed you when we successfully got the funds back to the last dime. I can finally put my aging mum into a good nursing home and I can successfully finish my medical course. When I first heard about The EXNER HACKER, I was in the bank where I met my school mentor and I happened to mention my troubles. She didn’t hesitate to mention EXNER HACKER as she herself had received their services earlier on. As we speak, my $291,000 is successfully deposited in my account. All is well and I am one happy fulfilled person. If you need funds and cryptocurrency related help, seek this company out at:
Email: TheexnerhackerATprotonmailDOTcom
Telegram: (PLUS)1 (917) 384‑3379
I contacted H A C K M A V E N S C R E D I T S P E C I A L I S T a few days ago through text and surprisingly they are carrying out an actual credit fix, my score was raised from 514 to 765 excellent score within 5days and all repossession, derogatory, and inquiries were deleted from my report! I took advantage of this and you too can by reaching out to them via EMAIL: H A C K M A V E N S 5 @ G M A I L (DOT) C O M or Call/Text/Whats-App: [+ 1 (2 0 9) 4 1 7 – 1 9 5 7] and I’m sure you will be happy you did.
Using CAPTAIN JACK CRYPTO RECOVERY COMPANY, you can retrieve lost cryptocurrency funds.
While recovering money from cryptocurrency scams may seem impossible, Captain Jack Crypto Recovery Company can provide you with an honest assessment of your case, and their recovery team will not only provide you with comfort during the process but will also make every effort to get your money back. I was fortunate enough to come across the Captain Jack Crypto Recovery Company team after being a victim of Bitconnect, a cryptocurrency investment site, who enabled me to retrieve my lost cryptocurrency. In addition to tracking the transfer of the lost cryptocurrency, Captain Jack Crypto Recovery Company was also able to locate the scammers’ wallets and even follow their whereabouts.
WhatsApp +4915782317112
Telegram: @captainjackcrypto1